What keeps us out of trouble

This is pretty bad. It's mid-March and this is my first blog of 2012.   We continue to be very busy with Young Singles activities.  We help furnish food for a monthly break-the-fast dinner, plus invite the YSA to our home one Sunday a month for dinner, plus host a game night monthly.  Just keeping them contacted and encouraged, plus shuttling them to the North Chapel (where we are now holding Sunday meetings) keeps us thinking of others instead of ourselves.

 

I continue to maintain a facebook account for our YSA group, with about 40 kids on it.  We've been working both with the SJC dorms as well as the 5th ward, so there are really a lot of kids that age.  Just a few weeks ago, however, Sallie and Jim Hughes were called to serve at the dorms, so that has helped a lot to reduce the leg work.  We are working with them however, to host game night and dinners, at least until next year starts.  We have too many kids we don't want lost in the changeover.

Steve is still working at the temple every Tuesday, and that's when I do a lot of my visits and fellowshipping, as well as getting flyers designed for upcoming events.  We have tried hard to invite our less active (both physically and spiritually)  neighbors out to participate in various activities at our home, as well as the ward, and lunches at the Sr. Center. 

We've had several neighborhood parties during the winter: pinochole, game night, Chinese New Year Party, and others which we hope is as fun for them as it is for us.  We've also tried to always invite someone when we feed the missionaries, and have enjoyed getting better acquainted with them, and it helps the missionaries too.  We've invited the Lobatos, Larry Dennison, Ricky's family,  

In January--we hosted a "history lunch" and invited many of our friends who have been working on family histories.  Those coming were Gayle Shumway, Patsy Shumway, Silvia and Brian, Beverly Vowell, Kay Jones,  Nancy Kimmerle. Each told of strategies, and publishers they have used in their history projects.  It was very helpful and interesting.  Afterwords we had a soup and salad lunch.

Tuesday Evening is when we do the Addiction Recovery Class.  The numbers have been pretty good all winter, between 8-12 coming, but it seems that once warm weather comes, the numbers go down a bit.  Once a month we also attend a community family support group whose goal is to help families who struggle because of addictions of loved ones.
Just recently I made copies of a modified version of our teaching manual, which was designed to be used as a 12 week Sunday School manual.  It's called "Overcoming Hurts, Habits, and Hangups."
I'm hoping that might be used to help others as well. Everyone could benefit from the 12 step program, as we all have Hurts, Habits, and Hangups that prevent us from being all we could be -- especially in the context of change and becoming more like Christ.